Monday, Jan 17, 2011
(This item was originally published Sunday.)
By Alex MacDonald
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
DOHA (Dow Jones)--Qatar Airways is interested in establishing routes to Portugal from Doha that could result in extra business for TAP Portugal, the head of Portugal's airline said Sunday.
Fernando Pinto, president of TAP, said on the sidelines of a forum here that TAP doesn't plan to establish routes between Portugal and Qatar, but he said Qatar Airways has expressed "interest in (establishing) flights to Portugal."
He noted if Qatar were to set up new routes to Portugal, TAP could benefit indirectly.
"It's one more volume of passengers that we can distribute" to other locations, he said.
Aside from flights to the U.S. and Europe, TAP also serves as a European hub for flights to Angola, Mozambique and Brazil, former colonies of Portugal.
Pinto also said that TAP's privatization process hadn't yet kicked-off and that the government still needed to set up a commission to review the best options for privatization.
Pinto noted that partnerships in which airlines exchange equity investments in each other is happening more regularly. He cited the tie-up between British Airways PLC (BAIRY, BAY.LN) and Spain's Iberia (IBLA.MC) as an example.
Pinto declined to comment on which partnership would make sense for TAP.
-By Alex MacDonald, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)7776 200 924, alex.macdonald@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
17-01-11 0347GMT
